Organizational Consultations

Examples of our Organizational Consultations follow. Names and identifying details have been changed:

Executive Groups: Senior Managers of a mid-size company offered recent feedback to the Executive Group (EG) that the EG was micro-managing their projects. Further, the Senior Managers felt the EG neglected to set strategic direction. These perceived problems eroded trust between the two groups and left them feeling confused and frustrated. At the CEO’s suggestion, the Executive Group began working with us. Once the executives began examining the internal dynamics—including trust issues—among themselves, a positive “trickle down” effect to the Senior Managers occurred. The result: communications between the two groups improved significantly, tensions dissipated and productive interaction between the two groups increased.

Board of Directors: Karen was growing tremendously frustrated as Chair of the Board of Directors. Although she felt deeply committed to the Board on which she had served for 7 years, the "tone" of the Board had changed over the years. Board members were frequently absent for scheduled meetings and some attended meetings inadequately prepared -- Karen suspected that they had only glanced over the Board packet. Furthermore, Karen had a "wildcard" Board member who seemed to enjoy being contentious and challenging, but for no productive end. Karen knew the CEO was also becoming quite frustrated and demoralized as well. Karen consulted us and we helped both Karen and the entire Board understand and work through these troubling dynamics. Karen was able to lead the Board in a more confident and authoritative way and the Board responded positively.

Departmental: Greg, an experienced manager at his company, was recently transferred to a customer service department. This department had a reputation for being like the "Wild West." There was an inordinate amount of gossiping, back-biting and harassment among the employees themselves. What was quite confusing to Greg was that these dynamics were quite subtle and "flew under the radar" since the employees did not openly argue or fight with one another. Yet Greg sensed the tension level was high most days and he seemed to spend more and more time "putting out fires" and resolving tearful disputes and misunderstandings between employees. Further, recent customer complaints of rude and dismissive treatment were catching the attention of senior managers. Greg consulted us and we helped both the groups learn to resolve their differences in more productive ways and helped Greg understand his employee's concerns and needs and respond to them more effectively. The result was a quieting down of these troubling dynamics, more productive functioning and a decrease of customer complaints.